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I slowly reached for a leather-bound book on the corner of the table. I raised an eyebrow at him when I spotted the title on the spine. “Little Women?”
He only shrugged.
I opened the book but didn’t really read anything. Every few seconds, my eyes would drift back to Vicious.
His gaze was still on the screen when he said, “Is there something else on your mind, Help?”
I hated that we were back to what we were before his confession.
“Am I an idiot for sitting here with you?” I asked, honestly interested to know what he made of this whole situation.
A ghost of a smile passed across his face. “You’re a lot of things. An idiot has never been never one of them.”
“Then what am I?”
“You’re…” He looked up, inspecting me. Sometimes people could communicate with a stare alone, and his eyes said mine, but his mouth said, “Complicated. You’re complex. It’s not a bad thing.”
I wanted to tell him that he didn’t deserve my help, that I hated him, but that wasn’t the truth. At least not the latter. Even if I was considering lying for him, I didn’t want to make a habit out of it, so I just kept my mouth shut.
He tangled his leg with mine purposely under the table, daring me to pull away. I didn’t. I liked his warmth. I liked his long, muscular leg laced with mine. I liked how after a few minutes of pressing his leg harder into my calf, he used his knee to nudge my legs apart. I let out a sigh.
But all throughout, he didn’t look at me. Not even once. I pretended to keep reading, and he tapped the table with a chewed pen. My hands tightened on the book when I recognized the name printed on the pen’s side. I realized that it was my pen. The pen I’d used when he came to McCoy’s.
Then he lifted his eyes and sent me another relaxed smile. “By the way, I took it upon myself to tell your little friend Rachelle that you won’t be returning to the bar for any more shifts. I trust you girls can live off your current salary. You’re all mine now, LeBlanc. And you’re welcome.”
IT HAPPENED. I FELL UNDER.
After staying awake for eighty-four hours straight, my body finally gave in and completely shut down. It happened in my old bedroom, and I barely made it into bed, but I did. I was still shirtless—mainly because I liked how she looked at me when I was working and she was reading. But it was morning, and I knew that I was going to sleep for a long time and that sooner or later, she’d realize that something was wrong. That people don’t just disappear for so many hours in the middle of the day.
I woke up thirteen hours later and it was evening again. There was noise coming from the broad hallway outside my room, and I hoped it was Help, even though I knew it wasn’t. I was right, of course. It was my father’s nurses, Josh and Slade. They were arguing among themselves about the Raiders and the Patriots, and I was not impressed. The two fuckers had woken me up.
I passed by the beefy men and walked straight into my father’s bedroom. He must’ve been discharged from the hospital and returned while I was asleep. And surprise, surprise, Jo was still nowhere to be found. Guess Cabo was more important than standing by your man in his final weeks. Or days.
The gravity of the situation weighed heavy on my shoulders, but this was what I’d waited for, for so long. Ever since I was twelve.
Now, it was time.
Daryl was dead.
Dad was dying.
And soon, Josephine’s life would be over too.
I kept the door open. The nurses glanced my way but continued bickering in the hall, flinging their arms around as they talked football.
“Hey, Dad.” I smiled, leaning a shoulder against his wall with my hands tucked inside my pockets. I rested my head beside a Charles-Edouard Dubois painting—it was good, but I liked Emilia’s shit better—and enjoyed the view.
The man who’d ruined my life looked like a cheap carbon copy of the man he used to be. Completely bald, pallid in color, with a neck like a lizard’s, his veins sticking out from his saggy, thin skin. I looked nothing like him and exactly like my mother, which I guessed was part of the reason why Jo hated my guts.
“Don’t lie, son. Jo and Daryl would never do such a thing,” he told me when I showed him my scars. My wounds. My pain.
“She locks me in there with him,” I argued for the millionth time.
“Jo says you do it to yourself. Is this about attention, Baron? Is that what you want?”
I didn’t need attention. I’d needed a different fucking father.
